lonely
The whole reason that Skye agreed to join SHIELD was because of Yelena.
Skye met Yelena when she was thirteen and had only recently run from the orphanage she was staying at. Skye didn’t have a cent to her name but could code and hack easily and did nothing is easier than pulling codes from laptops and selling them.
Skye met Yelena when she got into a little bit of trouble. She bit off more than she could chew and was struggling to access the information that the buyer wanted. Then a teenager only a little older than her enters the scene but gets locked in and is unable to crack the lock.
Skye barters the security system access code for help accessing the information she needed. The girl said to call her Tiny Dancer so Skye introduced herself as Skynet. She thought it made her sound badass.
She’s startled and slightly frightened when Tiny Dancer tracked her down again. Skye thought she did a good job hiding her tracks but apparently, she didn’t do a good enough job when she gets a call from the teenager asking for a favor.
In return, Tiny Dancer shows her a few tips and tricks to stay off the radar that Skye hadn’t thought of.
Their meetings are scattered few and far between but it’s always an adventure whenever Tiny Dancer reaches out.
It’s nearly a year and a half after Skye and Tiny Dancer met when the teenager reaches out. Skye still has the conversation saved on her laptop.
Tiny_Dancer: i’m going dark
Skynet:wot?
Skynet: why?
Tiny_Dancer:i
Tiny_Dancer: i can’t
Tiny_Dancer: i’m sorry
Skynet:?
Skynet: are u in trouble?
Tiny_Dancer: they’re going to mess with my brain
Tiny_Dancer: it’s not safe for you to contact me anymore
Tiny_Dancer: they’ll find you
Skynet:i’ll still be here if you need me
Skynet: ur a good friend
Skynet: I hope u stay safe
Tiny_Dancer: u 2
That had been the last conversation that they had until Yelena reached out to tell her to stop hacking SHIELD.
Yelena had got out of that terrible place. Her mind didn’t seem too messed with.
They finally met for the first time in person and Yelena didn’t even seem skeptical because of Skye’s age.
So maybe it was stupid of Skye to trust Yelena despite not even meeting in person but Yelena had done nothing but help her and she helped Yelena in return.
However, when Yelena leaves off base with her sister, Skye is left feeling kinda lonely. She had gotten used to spending time with a kid around her age and she didn’t have to worry about being awkward because Yelena was kinda awkward too. Neither of them had normal upbringings or socialized with children very much.
Phil tried to cheer her up but Skye was still wary of him. Yelena seemed to trust him and Skye trusted Yelena but she didn’t trust this agent assigned to be her ‘guardian’.
Skye had limited access to technology and she did sign a stupid piece of paper for Phil promising not to hack anything important. Without Yelena, Skye was bored.
So she quickly found herself in hot water with a few agents who weren’t too happy with some simple pranks.
All Skye did was add Kool-Aid powder to the shampoo dispensers in the locker room! It’s not like she killed anybody. Still, with a hand firm on her shoulder, Skye was marched straight to Phil.
Phil managed to keep his cool as the agent with bright purple hair that smelled of grape yelled at him about Skye. But as soon as the door closed, Phil lets out a hearty chuckle as he glances at Skye.
Skye had been expecting some sort of punishment. She expected to write lines at the very least, Maria’s favorite punishment. To her astonishment, Phil merely shakes his head fondly.
“You didn’t hurt anybody,” Phil tells her. “The worst thing you did was make them need another shower.”
His reaction baffled Skye. Unlike Maria, Phil hadn’t set up any clear rules. So Skye set out to see just how far she could push. It was like a game.
Except Maria picked up on what she was doing pretty fast and made Skye sit down in her office and write out ‘I will not scare agents by pretending that a piece of lint is a wasp’ after Skye scared one of the agents so bad that they hit their head on the door frame.
In fact, the only sensible adult that had the audacity to say anything about the way she was behaving was Maria. It was like the woman had a pair of eyes in the back of her head.
Skye still doesn’t even know how Maria knew she had swiped a rubber band and paperclips to launch paper planes at people’s left ear. The woman had only raised an eyebrow after extending her hand and waited until Skye relinquished the items.
Skye groans and huffs because she’s bored to tears but she doesn’t actually speak up because she learned that if you tell an adult that you’re bored then they’ll make you do chores.
It’s not until she’s under Phil’s close supervision after hacking her way onto an agent's tablet to pull Candy Crush up onto it that she finally meets Melinda May.
Skye still thought the whole ‘emergency guardian’ thing was silly. If there was an emergency, Skye sure hoped that Yelena would be there because the girl could ninja her way out of anywhere and Skye trusted her to have her back.
But since Yelena wasn’t an actual adult in the United States, Skye had to settle with some chick she’d never met but Phil trusted. Unfortunately, his word meant nothing to Skye.
May seems less than thrilled to be stuck with Skye, telling Phil that Skye was a big girl and didn’t need looking after.
Phil retorted with saying that Skye liked pranks and found herself in trouble far too often and that he’d owe her one.
May clearly wanted nothing to do with her, something that wasn’t new to Skye. In fact, Skye even went as far as ‘let’s not do it and say we did’.
Which went okay the first time it happened but the second time Skye found herself in a heap of trouble with an agent that she ticked off who grabbed her by the back of her shirt and dragged her down the hallway like a puppy that needed to be scolded.
Except he was so tall and rough and his hand holding the bunched-up fabric was causing her collar to dig into her throat until she was choking as she tried to keep up with his long strides.
Skye is pretty sure that she was going to get kicked off the helicarrier right then and there. He might as well just brought her to the railing and chucked her over the guard rail.
“Let her go!”
Skye was relieved to see May, even more relieved to drag a lungful of air in as her shirt is let go of. May does some totally awesome ninja move that Skye was too distracted to fully appreciate and the man lands with a grunt. Skye’s pretty sure May hissed something about putting his hands onto teenage girls into his ear but Skye was massaging her sore throat.
It’s not the first time she’s been choked but it never gets easier.
Skye apologizes to May, wincing at the hoarse sound of her voice. She didn’t mean to take things so far.
May instead takes her to the cafeteria and makes her tea from her own personal stash to help Skye’s throat.
“You are allowed to fight back,” May tells Skye and then goes on this whole lecture about self-defense that Skye is pretty sure has been rehearsed. Skye wonders if Yelena got this talk as well.
Skye’s then startled by May telling her that she’ll be in the gym weekday afternoons and that Skye is welcome to join her to learn some self-defense skills.
Maybe it’s Skye’s burning curiosity or just pure boredom that leads Skye to the gym the next day. She watches May do this weird slow yoga thing for a little bit.
May lectures Skye once again before they even do anything. Skye hadn’t been expecting rules or to be asked about triggers to avoid. She is then told once again that she can fight back if she feels threatened.
It’s a lot of words when all Skye ends up doing is a bunch of slow motions which May informs her is tai-chi and will help her with balance.
Skye must have taken May’s words to heart a little too much because when Phil ends up spooking her when she had headphones on, Skye punches him in the face. The sight of Phil rubbing his jaw had Skye ducking down and out the door.
Skye had been nothing but trouble since she showed up. She was sure that this was going to be the final straw. Skye remembers being called violent and out-of-control as a foster child.
Skye finds an empty office to hide out in, curling up in the corner. Phil calls her but she denies his call.
Then Yelena calls for the first time since leaving and Skye knows that Phil told her.
Yelena promises to have her back, even when she doesn’t know what Skye did. That statement made Skye feel better because she knew for sure that Yelena would keep her word. Having one person on her side no matter what makes her feel better.
Yelena even offers to show her a few moves and Skye tells her about the tai-chi that May had shown her.
Skye does feel better after hanging up. Yelena had promised that nobody was going to be chucking her anywhere.
The last thing that Skye expects was to hear a chirp and look up to see an orange cat sitting on the office desk idly swishing their tail as they clean their paw.
Maria is the one that finds her and insists to Skye that Phil’s not mad at her. Maria tells her that they all got caught up in their emotions sometimes.
“I bet you don’t,” Skye retorts because cool, calm, collected Commander Hill seemed so unshakeable.
Maria then proceeds to tell Skye about the time she got onto the mats when she was angry and ended up punching Yelena in the face.
Skye asked Maria if she had to write lines for punching Phil in the face. Maria says that she’s not going to punish Skye for a trauma response and Skye doesn’t bother to correct her.
When Maria manages to coax her out to go to dinner, they meet up with Phil who insists that he’s not upset with Skye, even though there is a nice bruise forming on his jaw.
Skye feels like she might be dreaming when Phil compliments her punch.
Maria joins them for dinner and Skye tries not to show how relieved she is at her presence.
Skye pokes at her casserole when Phil suddenly slams his hand down on the table, letting out a laugh and shoving a finger at Maria when the commander mentions Yelena’s sister.
“Ha! I win.” Phil grins.
“Oh come on! I wasn’t complaining,” Maria folds her arms, raising an unimpressed eyebrow at Phil.
“You totally were,” Phil reaches his hand out. “Pay up.”
“The bet was to buy dinner,” Maria reminds Phil.
Skye glances between the two of them, slowly bringing a bite up to her mouth as she watches in amusement as Phil grins.
Skye might be kinda lonely without Yelena but things weren’t so bad here.